


Promising Tomorrow

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Whiskey Echo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-20
Updated: 2008-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 01:24:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1624211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Haunting the streets of Toronto, Rollie can't move forward after leaving behind one person too many.  Perhaps moving on isn't the answer this time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promising Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my lightening beta RevolutionaryJo, for speedy turn around and numerous reassurances. World Medicine and Develop Lives are not real charities, but they stand in for actual organizations working throughout the world to provide medicine, education, and hope to people and countries in crisis.
> 
> Written for akamine_chan

 

 

The cafe window fogged as little white puffs of breath and steam claimed patches of glass against the frigid assault of the wind outside. Perched on a stool at the counter, Rollie shivered as he absently ran his thumb across his nametag. He'd belatedly remembered its presence only when the barista told him, "Have a good day, Doctor Saunders," her lips and tongue lingering over the word "doctor" as picket fences and weekends in Manhattan danced in her eyes. The name shook him, and he nodded dismissively in return, scalding his mouth on a too hasty sip of coffee.

Quickly grown cold and bitter, his coffee now stood forgotten in a pile of odds and ends which he had removed one by one from his pockets: a tiny notebook, room key, safe key, pen with the hotel logo, assorted change, dry cleaning receipt, lint, two mints in shiny cellophane wrapping, and a small but thick folded square of papers, crumpled and worn at the edges. The flimsy little nametag felt heavy, and he placed it alongside the miniscule mountain of baggage on the counter. After all, it was "Doctor Saunders" who needed locks and notes and private space and a sweet to stave off old habits, and dry cleaning, of all things. Checking Doctor Saunders' watch, he sighed, and put the notebook, room key, safe key, pen, change, receipt, and mints back in his winter coat pockets, feeling their weight settle. Slowly he lifted the paper to run his fingertip across the softened edge of one worn fold. Closing his eyes, he unbuttoned his suit jacket and slid the little square into the inner pocket, over his heart. Then, he reclaimed his nametag and ventured back out into the snow.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

During breaks Rollie left the crowded reception rooms, packed to bursting with good intentions and bonhomie, to walk through the parks and streets of Toronto, foreign to him now. He walked through Queen's Park where a protestor cornered him and tried to patiently explain recent changes in telecommunications law. He walked through Dundas Square where a band boomed through rows of makeshift market stalls. Among the tables of stained glass, carvings, paintings, and photographs, he thought of other hands in other stalls, one ladling golden turmeric into a sack, another, cracked and worn, picking through a barrel of plump green chilies, and a dexterous hand with three remaining fingers coaxing a water pot out of a slab of reddish clay. He walked through the streets and alleys of Chinatown, counting the months and years of his life in the shops he passed: Cambodia, Myanmar, Maylasia, Thailand, Laos. He tried to remember how to say "thank you" when he ordered pad thai at a restaurant with four crooked tables and a striking number of ducks hanging forlornly in the window, but the waitress narrowed her eyes and clicked a blindingly fast sequence of buttons on her MP3 player before stalking away, so he may have gotten it confused with "take all the pills." More than one lifetime had passed since he had needed to know.

He did not go walking through Moore Park, although its amphitheatre and wide streets flickered at the edges of his thoughts during interminably long presentations on how technology could improve everything from heart monitoring to forming rapport. He didn't avoid it because it was a long walk; although his shoulders now ached on the coldest days, he still made the trek North to take a stroll down Eglinton Avenue, peaking into chocolate shops and theatres, wondering how long it had been since he'd lost himself in celluloid dreams. He'd bought a thick cup of bitter hot chocolate which coated his mouth and throat in smoky cooking fire memories of rich laughter and gossip he'd pretended to ignore, then doused the feeling with strong hotel coffee when a stubbornly set pair of eyes continued to haunt him throughout the afternoon session.

He walked down Church Street feeling irrationally nervous, reminding himself, as if reading a UN fact sheet, that he was safe here, this was allowed here. He wandered into rainbow bedecked awnings, through clothing stores featuring shirtless male models half his age and out of book shops with sections on gay tourism, gay fiction, gay cookery, and gay liberation. When he stopped for coffee, and bought a copy of The Advocate because he could, the barista smiled as he said, "Have a nice day, _Doctor_ Saunders," caressing the words with intent. Rollie sighed and cursed his absentmindedness of late, pocketing the damn nametag.

When he wandered down Queen Street West, his steps stuttered, dragging along the slushy sidewalk as he feigned interest in T-shirts for bands he didn't know, and art referencing current events he hadn't heard about. He came to an abrupt halt at the Drake Hotel where he contemplated the crossroads there that could lead to the highway and out of town, or North along a pleasant tree-lined avenue to a neat house with a brown door and silver handle. Carefully, he withdrew the little folded square from his inner pocket and ran his gloved finger across the seam, knowing that he couldn't keep it if he decided to stay, knowing that he couldn't keep it if he decided to leave, knowing that however far he flew or drove or walked he wouldn't have moved even one step from that outpost in South Sudan as long as he still carried those papers. Setting his jaw, he turned North and nearly caused a collision when his entire body rebelled and he remained rooted to the spot, clogging pedestrian traffic. He replaced the paper, grumbling to himself, and headed back downtown where an endless number of science and development colloquia awaited.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

While he didn't deny the allure of the hotel's unobtrusive beauty and utilitarian comforts, the enormous yet incongruously thin television in his room, the mountains of canapés discarded after every reception, even the lights left on in every ballroom and meeting space long after dark made him bite back phrases like "Western decadence" that would put him on a watch list were he to have let them escape when he first caught a glimpse of the shopping Mecca Toronto Airport had become. Paulo would have choked on the eight dollar bottle of water in his bathroom and he imagined projecting the thought, making Paulo shiver with the sheer power of his regard in whichever dry and arid place World Medicine had sent him this time. Not that he thought of Paulo anymore. Not really.

But the one truly unforgivable, absolutely incomprehensible aspect of the conference hotel was the lack of any bar without a dress code. Thus, when an ice storm intervened in his plans for a moonlight stroll down Younge Street, he'd ended up drinking beer from the bottle, after resolutely refusing a glass, while forlornly wearing a tie. Watching the ice skaters in Trinity Square below until their swirling patterns in the falling snow blotted out everything else, he hadn't registered the rising din as the brasserie filled until a voice almost directly in his ear asked, "Is this seat taken?" He startled slightly and felt the warm brush of breath against his face as he turned, absently replying, "No, no one else here." The man who settled into the seat next to him had sandy blond hair, wore a perfectly tailored suit with apparent ease, and hovered in that indefinable neverland between 35 and middle aged which could be infinitely extended with a combination of good genes and charisma. Tetchily noting the completely involuntary way he'd relaxed under the influence of mere moments in the other man's presence, Rollie decided that he'd managed to skip that stage and travel directly from 25 to old man due to a potent combination of the world's brutality and natural suspicion towards all things too good to be true, or rather too good to be just.

Once settled in, the man nodded to him and said, "Cheers," in a British accent that sounded like honey, and a smile escaped before Rollie could bite it back. Suddenly caught with an uncomfortable half-smile that probably made him look deranged or simple or both, Rollie watched as the man's gaze languidly roamed across his chest and thighs, lingering teasingly while he took a slow sip of martini, and completely lacking any sense of protocol or passcodes after being out of circulation for more than a decade, he could do nothing but tilt his head to accentuate the stupid grin and raise his eyebrows meaningfully. Apparently he passed for the moment, because a finely fingered hand was proffered to the introduction, "Brent," and he dutifully shook, not too hard but with a lingering slow slide apart at the end, and offered "Ralph" in reply. Grey eyes narrowed and laugh lines, not worry lines, appeared. "But that's not what people call you, is it," Brent speculated, then continued on, "Doctor, lawyer, teacher, or something else?"

Rollie briefly considered lying, but Brent hadn't said "doctor" with that sickening air of expectation, so he admitted, "I'm with the World Medicine health technologies seminar. You?"

Brent sighed in mock apology, "I'm with the teachers, although I'm just a money man now - don't deserve to be called a teacher, now that I don't do what they do anymore." He attempted a scowl but it missed the mark to sit on his perfect cheekbones as endearingly rueful instead. Setting his drink on the high counter next to the window, he swiveled his stool to face Rollie fully, openly studying him before coming to the conclusion, "No, I don't think I'd have gone with doctor for you." Tilting his head and squinting he speculated, "Maybe archeologist, or wildlife sanctuary manager, or alligator wrestler." Rollie wondered if perhaps the suit had been a mistake if it failed so spectacularly to conceal him, if perhaps somehow Cambodia and Nicaragua and Bosnia and the people left behind had been imprinted on the hem or seam, trying to forget the indelible way they were imprinted in his posture, and in the strength of his thick fingers, and in the fire of his eyes. "I'm just back from a field clinic in South Sudan," he said, as if that explained everything, and somehow, as Brent nodded knowingly, it did.

"I've done some work there," he replied, withdrawing a business card and sliding it along the cold metal table toward Rollie. "I'm with Develop Lives in their education division. We set up schools, train teachers, deliver books and supplies, and provide language instruction from international volunteers."

"But not you, because you don't teach," Rollie added as he reached to retrieve the card, belatedly registering how close he had leaned as the other man talked, but unwilling to reinstate distance now.

"Well, not anymore," Brent quietly affirmed, and for the first time Rollie saw the shadow of something cross that smooth face, nothing sad or regretful, nothing angry or guilty, but some depth of experience that spoke of wisdom and solidity. And then, with a teasing smile, it was gone, as Brent repeated, "Now I'm the money man." Retrieving his martini, he held it out pretentiously and, raising an ironic eyebrow, explained, "It's my job to be so charming over cocktails that rich philanthropists open their wallets for textbooks in addition to your inoculations."

Rollie took a long, slow pull of his beer before asking flatly, "And is this you being charming? Because the per diem in Sudan doesn't qualify me as a rich philanthropist and my wallet is safe in my room."

Brent chuckled low, earthy in a way he hadn't appeared before, and shook his head. "I'm off the clock," he said as he lifted a tentative hand to rest over Rollie's own and continued softly, "and if I end up in your room, it won't be for your wallet."

Rollie inhaled sharply. He'd known this was where things were going from the moment he'd felt hot breath against the curve of his ear and shivered, yet it still seemed surprising, shocking even. He had to reach back further than the fifteen years he'd been abroad to remember the last time sex had seemed so easy, so simple. The first year of deployment he'd learned that buying sex was rape, not because he'd purchased it himself but because he treated women with bruises and infected, torn scar tissue and eyes haunted by the wails of their starving children. His second year he decided that colleagues were nothing but trouble, and firmly off limits. The next year he learned that administrators were even bigger trouble. In his fifth year he'd sat with his face pressed into the window of a light aircraft while tears ran down the glass as the figure of woman in an embroidered shawl vanished from sight and he vowed to never let himself go through that again. And of course before . . . well, there had been nothing easy about those last years in Toronto, holding onto his job and his family and his sanity by the skin of his teeth. Reveling in the possibility of something simple, he turned his hand palm up to mesh his fingers with Brent's and offered, "So, do you want to get out of here?" quickly and clumsily adding, "Just for the night."

Brent nodded, and there was a warmth to his smile that Rollie hadn't allowed himself to register before. Trailing his thumb across Rollie's, he acknowledged, "Tomorrow is never promised to any of us."

"Is that a philosophy for life or sex?" Rollie prodded, explicitly stating the intention aloud for the first time between them, making it real.

Guiding them to their feet by their joined hands, Brent replied, "I find that it's a good all-arounder," before leading them out the door.

As they passed people in the hall on the way to the elevator Brent loosened his grip, allowing Rollie to pull away if he wanted, to hide, but Rollie held fast. Brent squeezed back, and nudged their hands slightly to swing them back and forth, like children do, for the sheer joy of it.

But once his door shut behind them, Rollie tensed, and began walking around the room, brusquely turning lights on, then off, then on again in apprehension until Brent caught up and neatly shuffled them over toward the bed, where he sat, looking up expectantly and playing with his top button. "You're not going to let me do this alone, are you?" he teased, and Rollie couldn't help replying "I don't know, maybe I like to watch," but he immediately leaned forward to shoo Brent's fingers away and start revealing flesh. When a nipple peaked out, his breath strained and he swooped down for a kiss, but Brent's fingers were there, catching his lips. "I can't kiss someone when I don't know the right name to moan," he insisted, and for a moment Rollie considered refusing, or repeating the name on his passport, or saying "Dr. Saunders" to see if it might still fit, but he was hungry now in a way he hadn't been for too long. "People call me Rollie," he invited, and his lips vibrated with ticklish intensity where Brent slid his fingers across before replacing them with his mouth. The kiss raced through his veins, and he slipped his hands inside the open shirt to stretch his fingers across Brent's heaving ribs and hold the intensity of the moment in his hands. Brent pulled back slightly to begin a retaliatory unbuttoning, and as he leaned to trace kisses across the revealed ridges and scars of Rollie's torso, he said, "I knew it - you taste nothing like a Ralph." Rollie rumbled out a laugh from low in his belly and knew that Brent had felt the trembling where his cheek pressed against his abdomen.

Finding each other's lips again, they shifted up toward the headboard without breaking for breath. Sprawled together, Brent disentangled their shirts and sent them flying to the far corners of the room before searching out the spot in the bend of Rollie's clavicle that caused his head to strain backwards when lightly bitten, traced the outline of the old tat on his shoulder, and ran his thumbs along the length of his breast bone. Rollie pulled one of Brent's hands up to his mouth to lave the pulse point at the underside of his wrist, then followed along and over the curve of muscle developed with barbells, not labor, past those inviting nipples, where he paused to nip and suck to sounds of growing urgency, and down over perfectly sculpted obliques, studded incongruously with angry scar tissue. Rollie paused and looked up, calculating how close Brent had come to dying while searching a face finally completely free from pretense. "I've got you," he said, and bent to count and claim and wash away every trace of shotgun fire with the caress of his tongue. Brent's breath hitched painfully in a stifled cry, and he held Rollie's gaze while reaching down to draw thanks and yeses along Rollie's cheeks and brow. At last, Rollie captured those fingers between his lips, letting their movement lead him back up to lie nose to nose.

They stared for a moment, barely touching, barely breathing, savoring the unlikely solemnity of this connection, until every cloth, and buckle, and centimeter of space between them became overwhelming. Moving together in a frenzy of writhing, unzipping, tearing, and unbuttoning, they gently grappled to slide together every bit of newly bared skin. Rollie held out his palm and Brent licked a broad swath across it before pulling him into a kiss overflowing with yearning tongues and teeth which muffled their groans once Rollie's hand slipped down to encircle their straining cocks. Brent thrust his hips and Rollie broke the kiss for a moment to hear himself moan, to let them both hear the lush swell of pleasure building within him. Then Brent's hand slid frantically along the surface of the bed beside him before pressing a string of packets and a tube into Rollie's free hand. Gasping between hot open mouthed kisses and little nibbles, Brent bit out "I can't wait any longer to feel you inside me," before he heaved himself to the side and over onto his stomach, one knee bent under him to open himself completely to Rollie's gaze. Awkwardly he stretched a hand behind him and strained his head to the side, reaching for Rollie, and the need written in his wide eyes and the long, tight lines of his back squeezed at Rollie's heart and lungs almost painfully, tempering his urgency. With a shaky breath he clasped Brent's hand while leaning over him to enclose his entire body with his own, pressing reassurances along Brent's neck and hairline with trailing fingers, the warmth of his cheek, and the tickle of his eyelashes.

Carefully sliding back without withdrawing his touch completely, leaving their calves and thighs pressed together, Rollie fumbled with a packet, tearing the condom along one side so that it lay flat. He ran his hands slowly around Brent's ankles, along strong shins, over the vulnerable crease at his knees, and up the insides of his thighs, where Rollie lingered, tracing the patterns of veins and muscles as Brent quivered beneath him. He leaned forward to rest his head on Brent's lower back and listen as the vibrations of his groans changed when Rollie reached up to cradle his balls and press into the skin just behind. Adding lube to his thumb, he traced his way back further to circle and coax the aperture there, before reaching for the deconstructed condom to tongue a slick trail of heat from the skin of Brent's lower back, down into the latex covered valley between his spread cheeks. Brent's entire body lurched, and Rollie stretched his fingers wide across his hips to hold him in place as his lips and tongue flickered and rolled, absorbing every remnant of tension to leave only the humid bloom of abandon. When Brent let go, he relaxed all at once, his flanks sinking into Rollie's waiting arms, Rollie's tongue pushing into him, soothing the soft, yearning muscle.

When Rollie straightened to fumble with another condom and stroke lube onto his neglected cock, Brent gave a sigh that probably would have been protest, had he will enough left to even moan properly, but then Rollie was there again, sliding into him like he had always belonged there. Rollie stilled for a moment and ran his spread fingers over the heaving ripple of Brent's ribs to rest at his waist, and he thought that this was crazy, that he didn't know Brent at all, but then he shifted and felt those little scars on professionally charming, doesn't teach, won't teach, can't teach anymore Brent's perfect right oblique and he knew everything he needed because he was holding the truth in his hand. In echo, Brent reached back a shaky hand to rest it over Rollie's, and as they began to move together Rollie felt a kind of poison draining there. As his stomach began to tremble, he clenched his jaw to hold on to the tension peaking inside him, and drew their joined hands to Brent's cock. "Touch my lips," Brent whispered, "I want to feel you everywhere," and somehow, as they thrust and writhed and stroked, they managed to curl even closer together into a glancing kiss that seared through every layer of sensation and pushed them over the edge, one after another, to tumble into an exhausted sprawl across the hotel sheets. The cool languor of night settled over them like a blanket and, with one of Rollie's arms cradling Brent's chest and Brent's hand spread across Rollie's hip, they slept.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rollie sat naked on the foot of the bed, slowly turning a small square of folded papers over and over in his hands, when Brent woke with the first light of dawn. Crawling across the mess of covers, Brent settled himself behind Rollie, pressing his chest to Rollie's tense back and enveloping him with his thighs around the outside of Rollie's own, a chaste mirror of hours before. Palming soothing strokes along Rollie's shoulders, Brent waited.

"We left someone there, in South Sudan," Rollie said faintly, "A young nurse." He stopped, and Brent smoothed his hands along Rollie's arms to still the restless movement of his fingers and rub little circles into the aching knuckles. Rollie tensed even further around that little stack of papers, but then slumped against Brent's firm chest and warm hands, and continued. "She was fantastic, passionate, smart, dedicated. And she got too attached. She couldn't leave when we had to withdraw." He paused. "She was my - she was my responsibility," he told the darkness.

Brent said nothing for a long while, just held him, still and soundless. When the clock clicked at the hour and thoughts of colloquia, meetings, seminars, and capital goals began to surface, Brent leaned his head against Rollie's stooped shoulder and whispered, "Is attachment so bad?" before sealing the sentiment into the shell of Rollie's ear with a kiss, then pulling himself away to gather his clothes, dress, and walk out the door.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rollie did not go to any of the paper presentations or roundtable discussions or technical demonstrations that day. Instead he gathered his scarf and coat tightly around him and walked out of the hotel, heading West along Queen Street. He did not hesitate at the Drake Hotel, but turned resolutely North along Beaconsfield Avenue to find a neat house with a brown door and silver handle. He did not hesitate before ringing the bell, but his heart shook when the door opened to reveal not only a young woman with brown hair and kind eyes, but also an older couple, all of them looking at him with friendly concern. "Can we help you?" the young woman asked, and Rollie took a deep breath before saying, "Hi, I'm Dr. Ralph Saunders, Rollie, and I was in Sudan with Jenna. Do you have a minute to talk? There's something I'd like to give you."

Too shocked to move, Jenna's sister simply goggled at him, and Jenna's father smiled sadly while his broad shoulders slumped inwards, self-protectively, but Jenna's mother beamed, and reached out to hold one of Rollie's gloved hands between her own, pulling him inside while saying, "I knew there was a reason we came early for the holidays. Just imagine if we'd missed you! Now of course we've heard all about you from Jenna's little videos. We're terribly worried about her, of course, but she wouldn't be our Jenna if she didn't sacrifice for what she believes in." Somehow during that stream of words she'd taken Rollie's gloves and coat, and sat him at a chair in front of the fireplace. Turning to her daughter, she prompted, "Tea, dear," and then looked at him expectantly. "Well, tell us all about it," she encouraged, and slowly at first, awkwardly, Rollie began to tell them about South Sudan. Not about the war, or the theft of their drugs, or the ravages of disease, but about the South Sudan that Jenna loved and believed in - the dream of a future for South Sudan that Jenna had stayed for. The four of them drank tea and talked for more than an hour, although Jenna's sister said very little and her father nothing at all, and by the point when he sensed that time was wearing on, a lightness had begun to settle into places where there had been only a cloying weight for too long.

Thus, it felt slightly morbid, as he prepared to go, to withdraw that folded sheaf of papers, when the phrase, "something to remember her by" sounded utterly funereal. But he persisted, because Rollie knew that no matter how cheerful they could be about Jenna's passion and Jenna's sense of justice, that even if Jenna made it out of the Sudan someday none of them would ever see her again, and her family did deserve something to remember her by. He ought to know, after all, because Dr. Saunders had died in Angola fifteen years ago, leaving his wife and daughter holding nothing but broken promises.

Rollie proffered the papers, gruffly explaining, "Jenna kept a diary on bits of scrap notebook paper. Nothing detailed or overly personal, and only on and off, but I found these packed in with some of the supplies after the evacuation, and I thought you should have them." He couldn't meet their eyes as he said it, and he waited with his hand outstretched, waited for them to take that weight from him as well, to set him free from the Sudan, from Jenna, from his failure, from the past.

At last he felt the brush of another hand against his own, but instead of taking the papers that hand curled his fingers closed around them, and Rollie looked up as Jenna's father spoke for the first time that morning. "You took care of our Jenna," he said, the set of his eyes tired but firm. "You took care of her when we couldn't and if you saw her again you'd do anything in your power to keep her safe." Rollie nodded gravely, and some sense of understanding passed wordlessly between them. Jenna's father let go of his hand and continued, "You keep her diary. We have a lifetime of photos and memories. You deserve to keep something too." With that he got to his feet, and everyone else quickly followed.

They all shook hands at the stoop, except for Jenna's mother who pulled him into a long, rocking hug and made him promise to stop by again on New Years, if he were still in town. "We're expecting a phone call," she explained, "but I don't want to get your hopes up because her letter said that she might not be able to make the trip into the city, and then there's always a question of the power . . . but to hear her voice again-" Her voice clouded with the beginning of tears although she still smiled. Rollie nodded. "If I'm still in town," he said, and wandered back down Beaconsfield Avenue into the unknown.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Back at the hotel Rollie stood holding a cup of coffee, trying to appear interested in internet browser compatibility issues with brain scans when he caught a glimpse of cheekbones too dazzling to be real. Excusing himself he turned a corner and found Brent standing in front of the elevator, piled down with suitcases. "Hey," he croaked, and Brent turned, his face illuminated by a smile that didn't look even a little plastic. "Hey," he replied, "I'm on my way to the airport, but let's grab a coffee," and they walked over to a table in the corner of the reception hall, sipping coffee with an industrial burned flavor while Brent grinned and Rollie fidgeted.

Slipping his pinkie around Rollie's, Brent said, "So, that was pretty spectacular, want to do it again some time?" in the same voice that slid like honey, with short British vowels and an undercurrent of heat, that Rollie had been thinking about all day.

He shook his head in frustration, "Whatever happened to 'tomorrow isn't a promise'?" he asked. "The world doesn't work like that. After one night you're not giving up traveling every moment to shake loose more school money in order to be with me, and I can't decide where I'm going to be from one day to the next. Here I am, in the first part of this idiotic retraining program to make up for medical advances I've missed while in the field, and I don't think I can keep doing it, can't just move to a new field site after losing Jenna to South Sudan, and I know that I can't stay here and be the dependable GP again. Idealism and passion and sentiment don't go very far when the problem is intractable." He huffed, immediately a little ashamed for dropping that tirade in Brent's lap when he'd really done nothing to deserve it, but relieved as well, that he'd said it, that it was outside of him now instead of churning endlessly in his gut.

Brent shook his head in mock amazement, and leaned forward to kiss Rollie, right there in the meeting room with colleagues and potential benefactors weaving every which way. As the kiss ended he lingered, pressing tiny fluttering kisses just under Rollie's bottom lip, then he stood and gathered his bags again. Heavily laden once more he leaned down to cup Rollie's face in his hands, and softly said, "Tomorrow isn't a promise, but I know me, and even after only one night I know some pretty important things about you. As long as there is a tomorrow and the sun comes up and somewhere people are suffering, you and I will both be out there doing something about it. Take your time, make peace, find yourself again, but I know that you are never so happy as when you're taking care of someone. Sooner or later you'll be out there again, and I'll find you." Brent pulled Rollie up into a tight hug, and Rollie closed his eyes and clung. Then, Brent pulled away, and Rollie watched his smile change as he turned away and headed back toward the elevator and the business of charming people. Rollie watched him go, and grudgingly allowed himself to feel the barest beginning of belief.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A cold wind blew outside his room as the snow started in again, but Rollie registered nothing beyond the phone in front of him. Even as he lifted the receiver he cursed himself for a fool, because the minute he said his name there would be nothing but static at the other end. Yet he dialed anyway, imagining the winding stair leading into the cozy cream colored kitchen that overlooked the Moor Park amphitheatre, and the nook next to the sink where the phone was ringing. The line clicked and a voice he'd know anywhere said, "Hello?"

"It's Ralph," he said, wincing, because he certainly wasn't that man anymore, and she knew it, had known it even before he did, the very first time he walked out the door and boarded a plane for Angola.

There was a long pause and he feared that she had simply walked away from the phone, not even bothering to cut him off, but finally her voice returned. "Are you ok?" she asked.

"Yeah," he reassured quickly, "Still in one piece."

An audible sigh followed, "Then why are you calling?" she quietly demanded.

"Is Linda home for the holidays?" he questioned tentatively, holding his breath to wait for a dismissal.

"She doesn't need anything from you," came the angry retort. "You weren't here, back when she did."

He pressed a finger to the bridge of his nose, fighting the desire to hang up, to stalk out of this room, to drive out of Toronto, to get on a plane bound for anywhere. But instead he breathed deeply and acknowledged, "I know. I know there's nothing I have to offer either of you anymore, but I'd just like to talk to her. I want to hear my daughter's voice again."

"Hmmm," he heard, and disbelief practically poured out of the receiver. He waited as the clock ticked and the snow fell and his heart clenched, but he didn't sense any of it. He felt timeless, suspended between realities, as though something were about to fall into place, one way or another. The phone crackled and a voice emerged, different now, almost unrecognizable, but he had to close his eyes against tears as soon as he heard it say "Dad?"

"Hi, Linda," he managed to push out.

"Are you in trouble?" she asked, sounding far more weary than a 22 year-old has any right to be, and he nearly chuckled at the repetition of her mother's line of thought.

"No," he assured, "I just wanted to talk to you."

Silence. He counted to ten, then ten again before she asked flatly, "Why?"

It should have been a hard question, an absolute game-ender after ten years of complete silence, but without practicing or rehearsing, something poured out of him. He said, "Because I'm in Toronto again and I'd like to see you; I'd like a chance to know you, before it's too late. I've - some things happened on my last mission and it reminded me how uncertain life is. Tomorrow is never guaranteed to any of us. I don't want to miss the chance to know my daughter." He closed his eyes as something frighteningly like hope beat within his chest.

"How long?" she asked darkly.

"How long what?" Rollie replied, confused.

"How long are you in Toronto before you run away again," she said with no inflection and Rollie grinned because he'd raised, or rather not raised, a cynical, proud, level headed girl, and he liked her.

He explained, "I'm in a retraining seminar until February, then rounds at the hospital through August."

"Call again on my birthday, if you remember when that is and if you manage to stay still for that long," she said bitingly, but joy welled up inside Rollie in such a rush that he had to stand and bounce on the balls of his feet to contain it all.

"February 18," he immediately offered, "I'll talk to you on February 18th, and then we'll talk for real."

"We'll see," she sighed.

But Rollie could feel himself steadying on his feet, see himself inoculating again, comforting again, kissing again, and coming home again, spending his downtime between missions not alone on a beach or fishing or staffing a phone bank, but walking into the kitchen that he'd once painted cream, looking out over Moor Park and talking to the daughter he'd once left behind. "As long as the sun comes up and there is a tomorrow," he said, "I'll call. It's a promise."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And indeed, two months later, sitting in his temporary hospital office glancing at two postcards, one from a lover and one from a dear friend, he did call, and Linda answered, and for the first time in a decade, they talked. 

 


End file.
